ce the end of the fourth
century. But Troy was not large. I am extremely disappointed at being
obliged to give so small a plan of the city; nay, I had wished to be
able to make it a thousand times larger, but I value truth above
everything, and I rejoice that my three years' excavations have laid
open the Homeric Troy, even though on a diminished scale, and that I
have proved the Iliad based upon real facts.

Homer is an epic poet, and not an historian; so it is quite natural that
he should have exaggerated everything with poetic licence. Moreover, the
events he describes are so marvellous that many scholars have long
doubted the very existence of Troy, and have considered the city to be a
mere invention of the poet's fancy. I venture to hope that the civilised
world will not only not be disappointed that the city of Priam has shown
itself to be scarcely a twentieth part as large as was to be expected
from the statements of the Iliad, but that, on the contrary, it will
accept with delight and enthusiasm the certainty that Ilium did really
exist, that a large portion of it has now been brought to light, and
that Homer, even though he exaggerates, nevertheless sings of events
that actually happened.

Homer can never have seen Ilium's Great Tower, the surrounding wall of
Poseidon and Apollo, the Scaean Gate of the palace of King Priam, for all
these monuments lay buried deep in heaps of rubbish, and he could have
made no excavations to bring them to light. He knew of these monuments
only from hearsay and tradition, for the tragic fate of ancient Troy was
then still in fresh remembrance, and had already been for centuries in
the mouth of all minstrels.

* * * * *

JULIUS CAESAR

Commentaries on the Gallic War

Caius Julius Caesar was born on July 12, 100 B.C., of a noble
Roman family. His career was decided when he threw in his lot
with the democratic section against the republican oligarchy.
Marrying Cornelia, daughter of Lucius Cinna, the chief
opponent of the tyrant dictator Sulla, he incurred the
implacable hatred of the latter, and was obliged to quit Rome.
For a season he studied rhetoric at Rhodes. Settling in Rome
after Sulla's death, Caesar attached himself to the illustrious
Pompey, whose policy was then democratic. In B.C. 68 he
obtained a quaestorship in Spain, and on returning next year
reconciled the two mos